Microsoft To Buy Nuance Communications For $19.7 Bln, Incl. Debt

(RTTNews) - Microsoft corp. (MSFT) agreed to buy speech-recognition company Nuance Communications Inc. (NUAN) for $56.00 per share in cash, valuing the company at $19.7 billion, including net debt.

The deal price represents a 23% premium to the closing price of Nuance on Friday, April 9.

Microsoft noted that Mark Benjamin will remain chief executive officer of Nuance, reporting to Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud & AI at Microsoft. Microsoft expects to close the deal by the end of this calendar year.

Microsoft expects the acquisition to be minimally dilutive (less than 1 percent) in fiscal year 2022 and to be accretive in fiscal year 2023 to non-GAAP earnings per share, based on the expected close timeframe.

The agreement with Nuance would be Microsoft's second-largest to date, after its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016.

Microsoft had considered buying the U.S. operations of video-sharing app TikTok last year, and last month it completed the $7.5 billion acquisition of video game maker Zenimax.